What you don’t know about fruit juice

It’s a warm, humid night, and I’m refreshing my post-choir-rehearsal throat with a frosty Corona. I made sure it would be frosty by calling my husband as I left the church to say, “Put a beer in the freezer for me!”

I could have chosen a light beer to save a few calories, but since I’m having just one, I went for flavor. The calorie cost? 148.

Liquid calories add up–and fast. The tricky thing is that many beverages provide plenty of calories (well, except for water, unsweetened tea, and black coffee) but no sensation of fullness.

And did you know that the biggest single source of calories in the American diet is sugar-sweetened soda? Yikes!

You’re a fit chick, so you already know that drinking sugary pop is one of the quickest ways to put on weight.

But did you know that fruit juice is actually higher in calories (and often higher in sugar) than soda?

Lots and lots of sugar

We tend to think of fruit juice as healthy food, and it’s true that liquefied fruit, especially if it’s fresh, is full of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

But if you’re watching your intake, fruit juice should probably be one of the first things you cut. Here’s why.

A serving of juice has a lot more calories, more sugar, and less fiber than a serving of whole fruit*. Here’s an example:

Florida orange, 150 grams

raw orange juice, 1 cup

calories

69

112

carbohydrate

17.4 grams

25.8 grams

sugar

13.8 grams

20.8 grams

fiber

3.6 grams

.5 grams

Following is an even more dramatic example–grapes and grape juice:

grapes, raw, 1 cup

grape juice, unsweetened, 1 cup

calories

67

152

carbohydrate

17.2 grams

37.4 grams

sugar

16.3 grams

36 grams grams

fiber

.9 grams

.5 grams

For the sake of comparison, you should know that one cup (eight ounces) of Coke has 91 calories, 23.5 grams of carbohydrate, and 22 grams of sugar.

Also, whole fruit helps fill you up; juice doesn’t. It takes you longer to eat a piece of fruit than to drink a glass of juice, and that alone helps increase its satiety value, its ability to fill you up.

I’m not saying you should never enjoy a glass of OJ–just that you should be aware of how much sugar it provides and how many calories it costs you. And if you’re trimming calories from your diet, juice is a great place to start.

So what do you think? Is juice an indispensable part of your day or an indulgence you enjoy on rare occasions?

Jennifer Grayeb is a 29 year old personal trainer living in Connecticut. She is "Coach Jen" at BeeWellForLife, a site run by Bumble Bee Tuna, Co-Founded FitFluential in 2011, and was a 2012 Runner Up for Fitness Magazine's "Best Personal Trainer Blog". She is a new mama to baby Emily, has a degree in English Literature from Southern Connecticut State University and is a Community Manager for a Fortune 100 company. Learn more about Jennifer...